


One who never felt

by zinjadu



Series: Wed to Blight [56]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Dubious Consent, F/M, Female Friendship, Guilt, Hurt, POV Morrigan (Dragon Age), and then making it even worse, re-writing an in-game scene you didn't like, the things we do for love, these poor kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-18 16:43:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21780580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: Check the rating, check the warnings.  Guys, this is not a good time.  A re-write of the Dark Ritual scene with a romanced!Alistair because I hated that the game reused the romanced!Morrigan animation.  Also gives space to Morrigan's thoughts and feels throughout, because this is happening to her too.Note:Fully drafted series here.  Near the end, guys.  Some fallout from this ickiness, and then we're almost to the end of the game and Caitwyn's journey.  Thank you everyone for either sticking with it or finding it and going back and reading much of it.  Take care of each other out there.
Relationships: Alistair & Morrigan (Dragon Age), Alistair/Female Tabris (Dragon Age), Alistair/Female Warden (Dragon Age), Alistair/Tabris (Dragon Age), Alistair/Warden (Dragon Age), Morrigan & Female Warden, Morrigan & Warden
Series: Wed to Blight [56]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/879681
Comments: 10
Kudos: 23





	One who never felt

This, Morrigan had not foreseen, not exactly. Alistair stood with his back to her, shoulders rigid with tension, his eyes locked to the door, the door through which Caitwyn had left but moments ago. For a year she had dreaded this, knowing that her mother’s plan would only succeed if Alistair agreed. She had no real desire to let the man near her at the best of times, let alone to lie with him. Leaving the Wilds, she had thought she could simply not make the offer at all, let the Wardens fight the Blight as they always had.

But then, she had found something entirely unexpected: a friend, perhaps even a sister. Thus, she made the offer.

“So this is your terrible aid, is it?” Voice raw, he asked and yet refused to look at her, refused to face her. Morrigan had not expected Caitwyn to tell Alistair everything, but she had. Morrigan was not certain it was a kindness or a cruelty for Alistair to know all the details, but that was not her concern.

“’Tis, though it need not be so terrible.” It was but a morsel of pity for the man before her, and she reached out a hand to his shoulder. He turned, then, eyes hard, jaw clenched, and she recalled the stone in his eyes when he had killed Loghain at the Landsmeet. With one hand, he gripped her wrist hard, but not enough to hurt. At least he was not a brute, even in his anger.

“No. Don’t try to make this good, because it never could be,” he said, voice clipped and raw.

“As you wish.” She inclined her head proudly and wrenched her hand away from his grip. Turning on her heel, she walked across the stone floor to where she had made her magical preparations for the ritual. One goblet, for the tincture they must drink, and a knife, for the blood. Because it always came back to the blood. Blood of life, blood of death, corrupted, tainted blood, and yet with that blood came the chance for purification. Not for them, no not for them, but for an old soul.

Raising the goblet to her lips, she drank half the portion, and held the rest out for Alistair. As if seeing it as a challenge, he strode to her, took the goblet, and drained it quickly without so much as a grimace for the bitter brew. Her hand held out in a silent command, he offered his palm with poor grace. She slid the knife across the heel of his palm with a smooth motion, the dark, red blood welling to the surface. Then she lifted the hem of her shirt, and he averted his eyes, staring into the fire that lit the room with its warm, golden light. That left it to her to take his hand and smear his blood across her belly. Old words tripped across her tongue as she reached into the Fade, suffusing their bodies with the magic necessary for the ritual.

He withdrew his hand as though she was painful to even touch, and Morrigan felt a righteous anger build in her chest. All those slights, all those judgments and boorish comments, he acted as if she were some villain, some vile demon, here to corrupt him. The utter, priggish pride of it all. But of course, he could not see that she wanted this as little as he did. She would do this. For Caitwyn she would suffer this act, would carry a child in her belly, would birth it, would raise it. All Alistair had to do was spill his seed and be gone, like any man.

What right had he to act as if this were distasteful for him alone?

“If you cannot bear to touch me, then this attempt to save her life is moot,” she spat, yellow eyes sharp and angry in the firelight. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, blood dripping between his fingers. A thousand curses stood in his eyes, and it was as if he did not know whether to storm out or to strike her down where she stood. Instead, he dragged his eyes back to hers, anger for her and himself both present, but he did not flee.

“Fine.” He bit at his words and breathed quickly as though near panic. “Let’s, let’s get this over with.”

“An excellent choice.” _She_ held to her poise. One step back and then another, the backs of her legs hit the bed. She sank onto it, removed her boots, and then hiked her skirt up, allowing him access. Looking as if he were about to be ill, he nevertheless followed her fumbling at the laces of his breaches, neither of them having a care to undress any more than necessary it would seem. For that, she was oddly grateful. Still, it should have been pathetic, the sight of Alistair tamping down his own disgust and discomfort to carry out this simple task, but again a strange kind of pity replaced it.

She had been afforded a year to wrap her mind around the idea of this.

He had been given less than hour.

Rather than offer help again, because she did not think either of them really wanted that, she let her eyes track upwards to the ceiling. After all, there was no reason to have to look at the man during this encounter. Then she heard the shift of fabric and felt his body between her legs. She was glad she had thought ahead and made herself ready, because she did not think she had ever had a less sensual encounter than this. Touching her as little as possible, he began to work himself inside of her. She let her legs lie open, and tried not to think of this as a betrayal, as taking something from her friend. Instead she focused on what mattered: saving Caitwyn’s life by whatever means necessary. Her friend’s very survival.

Alistair’s movements sped up before long, and she risked a quick glance at him to find that he was, once again, looking elsewhere. Eyes staring into the distance, where he too was likely putting the reality of the situation out of his mind. With a few, final hard thrusts he spent himself inside of her, and he immediately backed away from her, tucking his manhood back into his trousers and doing up the laces as quickly as he could. She did not rise immediately, instead covering herself once more with her skirt and closing her legs together to ensure that this exercise would not be wasted.

“Is that it?” he asked, voice ragged, hollow.

“Your part is complete, Alistair,” she told him. Rising on one elbow, she was startled that he looked as though he were ill, paler than usual and shirt sticking to his torso as though he had weathered a fever. He nodded and wasted no time leaving, the door shutting behind him with a sharp click.

Once, Morrigan would have thought Alistair’s reaction pure, sentimental foolishness, and even now she found it tiresome. However, alone, with the scent of blood and sex in her nose, she could admit that she had made the offer not for power or her own survival. She had made the offer because she was weak, because she could not bear the thought of standing by and doing nothing, to allow the death of someone who mattered to her. Perhaps the only person who ever had. The very thought choked her, clawed at her chest, and she hated the weakness she could not rid herself of. Because she was not sure she wanted to be rid of it.

Because Morrigan had done all of this for the one thing she had disparaged more than anything else. She had done this for love, for the love of the only friend she had ever known.

What terrible things people did for love.


End file.
